Suffixation of morphemes with a high tone pattern

The remaining two melodies in the table, HLH and LHLH, are unusual in that the contour of their underlying tone sequence differs from that of their surface tone pattern. This is because the required environment for downstep HLH is present in both melodies. In the HLH melody, the resulting surface tone melody is HM, whereas in the LHLH melody, it is LHM. We have no monomorphemic examples of words with the melody HLHL, which would be realized as HML. In summary, the association of tone melody to tone bearing units in Sandawe words shows a high but not complete degree of predictability. 32 The predominant tone association pattern in contour melodies involves the high tone being carried on as many syllables as possible, leaving the low tones associated to word-initial and word-final syllables. The importance of tone melodies in Sandawe will be seen in section 4.4, where we show how certain phrase and sentence-level tonal phenomena make reference to tone melodies.

4.3 Tone patterns in multimorphemic words

This section has been divided into five subsections. The first three subsections illustrate the phenomena resulting from the suffixation of morphemes with high, low, and falling tone patterns. The fourth subsection deals with the tonal effects of suprasegmental suffixes and the final subsection briefly considers the tone patterns of reduplicated forms and the assignment of tone patterns to borrowings.

4.3.1 Suffixation of morphemes with a high tone pattern

Table 4.5 shows the various tone patterns resulting from suffixing a morpheme with a high tone. Eight lexical items with particular tone patterns have been chosen to illustrate the different effects of this kind of suffixation. Two high toned suffixes are shown: the consonant-initial suffix - k¤ add., which has a short vowel, and the vowel-initial suffix -a˘ SF, which has a long vowel. 33 32 It is interesting to note that many of the words which constitute exceptions to the predominant tone association pattern appear to be loanwords. 33 Multimorphemic words are transcribed in their assimilated forms. Obligatory epenthetic consonants, such as [ g] between a nasal vowel and another vowel as in row 4, are included in the transcription where appropriate. See sections 6.1 and 6.2 for a description of the assimilation processes and epenthetic consonants found in multimorphemic words. Table 4.5. Suffixation of morphemes with a high tone Stem ending Example - k¤ additive - a˘ Subject Focus SF 1 high tone gele H-H Gele gele-k¤ H-H-H Gele-add. gele - a˘ H-H-H Gele-SF 2 rising tone tHe˘ LH tree tHe˘ - k¤ LH-H tree-add. tHe˘ - a˘ LH-H tree-SF 3 short high falling tone óe HL day óe - k HL-H day-add. óe - a˘ HL-H day-SF 4 long high falling tone tSH‚Ê˘ HL honey tSH‚Ê˘ - k HL-H honey-add. tSH‚Ê˘ - ga˘ HL-H honey-SF 5 mid tone óal o H-L-H swallow óalo - k H-L-H-H swallow-add. óalo - a˘ H-L-H-H swallow-SF 6 low falling tone in L melody word humbu L-L cow humbu - k¤ L-L-H cow-add. humbu - a˘ L-L-H cow-SF 7 voiceless vowel t¬¤ki• H-L morning t¬¤ki• - k H-L-H morning-add. t¬¤k - a˘ H-L-H morning-SF 8 glottal stop tono H-H-L small ax tono - k H-H-L-H small ax-add. tono - a˘ H-H-L-H small ax-SF A high toned morpheme has three possible tonal realizations: high level, mid level, and rising. The high toned realization surfaces after three of the example stems in the table. In rows 1 and 2, the high toned suffix follows a surface high tone and in row 6, it follows a surface low tone. In the second example of row 6 humbu-a˘ ‘cow-SF’, rightward low tone spread results in a rising tone on the suffix vowel. This process only occurs when the suffix vowel is long, as Sandawe does not allow short rising tones. All three pairs of examples in the rows mentioned have in common the absence of the environment required for downstep. In contrast, the remaining five pairs of examples in the table all contain a version of the sequence H-L-H, which causes the high tone of the suffix to be downstepped to a mid tone. In the examples with stem-final short high falling tones row 3, the low tone causing the downstep process is not observable at the surface level because of rightward tone spread. This tone spread process also occurs in the parallel examples with long high falling tones row 4, but, as in this environment, the process derives HHL from HLL, there is a low toned mora which is observable at the surface level. In the examples in row 5, both the stem-final tone and the tone of the suffix are downstepped from high to mid. The examples in the final two rows of the table pattern according to those examples contain a stem-final low tone. This supports the analysis proposed in the previous section of assigning low tone to a stem-final voiceless vowel and to the vowel which may surface after a stem-final glottal stop. These underlying low tones follow high tones in the examples given and therefore cause the downstep of the suffix vowels from a high tone to a mid tone. Four particular high toned suffixes warrant further explanation. There is the suffix - se, which can be attached to certain verbs and has a causative function. An example of this is g›R›-se ‘to stop trans.’, and is derived from the verb g¤R¤ ‘to stop intrans., wait’. As this example shows, the suffixation of - se results in all the tones of the stem being realized as low tones. In contrast, a second high toned suffix of particular interest, the morpheme - o˘, which can be suffixed to certain verbs and has a nominalizing function, results in all the tones of the stem being realized as high tones. Thus hawo˘ ‘collecting of water’ is derived from hawe ‘to collect water’. The deverbalizer suffix - tHe˘, which derives adjectives from verbs, is a suffix worthy of special mention. Two analyses are possible with respect to the tone of this morpheme. It can be analyzed as - tHe˘, that is, with an initial floating tone. By this analysis, when the morpheme is suffixed to a verb, the floating low tone causes the high tone of the suffix to be downstepped if the verb stem contains a high tone. Thus the adjective boe-tHe˘, ‘fat’, which is derived from the verb bo›e, ‘to be fat’, has a downstepped high tone in the final syllable, which is therefore realized as a mid tone. If the deverbalizer morpheme is suffixed to a verb with a low tone melody, there is no downstep environment and, therefore, the suffix is realized with a rising tone, following the pattern seen in the second example of row 6 of table 4.5. This can be seen in ganda-tHe˘, ‘thin’, which is derived from ganda, ‘to be thin’. Alternatively, the deverbalizer morpheme can be analyzed as having an underlying rising tone as this would result in exactly the same tonal behavior after suffixation. Finally, we have observed that the tone of the durative morpheme - jo˘ need not be downstepped in the normal downstep environment. 1 ko˘Ngo˘ - a˘ mantSHa - jo˘ sa˘ h¤ki• LH-H-H H-L-H H H-L Gkoongoo-SF eat-dur. NC3f.sg. go Gkoongoo carried on eating and then went The verb mantSHa-jo˘ ‘eat-dur.’ has the alternative tonal realization mantSHa-jo˘ , in which both rightward high tone spread and downstep do occur. In the first tonal realization, the suffix is acting tonally like a separate word, whereas, in the second, it is acting tonally like other high toned suffixes. 34 34 Elderkin also recorded an anomalous tone pattern for this suffix and this led him to analyze this suffix as having the highest word key pitch level 1989:136. By his analysis, most suffixes do not have independent word keys, but are realized at the pitch level of the word to which they attach.

4.3.2 Suffixation of morphemes with a low tone